Serpents Slain: Serpents missing scene(s)
by KaiMeara
Summary: Just my take on what Chris's intentions really were, and why Ezra did what he did.


DISCLAIMER: The following story is based on the show "The Magnificent Seven." This is purely for enjoyment; no profit is involved and no infringement on the copyrights held by others is intended.

SPOILERS: _Serpents_, _Working Girls_

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: A huge thank you to Greylyn, for making this story possible! You're the best!

****

SERPENTS SLAIN: _SERPENTS_ MISSING SCENE(S)

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Damn, damn and damn again. Chris Larabee watched as Governor Hopewell and his entourage made their way out of town. He knew Hopewell was behind the attempt on Mary's life, but they had no way to prove it. _So the bastard gets to walk free._ It just wasn't right.

__

Thank God Ezra was there, or Stutz woulda been successful. Thinking of the errant gambler reminded Chris that he still had a piece of unfinished business. "Vin, you okay takin' care of Stutz?" he asked the tracker, whose expression showed that he was just as frustrated over the confrontation with Hopewell.

"Yeah; JD went to fetch the undertaker. I'll stick around here, if ya got someplace to be." 

"I do," Chris tipped his hat and set out for the church; he'd seen Josiah head there after helping the injured gambler up to Nathan's clinic_. "He'd be dead if it weren't for this…"_ Nathan had said, holding up a stack of Stutz's money—the money Chris had given to Josiah to look after. The money that Josiah had then given to Ezra. Chris had been stunned to hear it, but there hadn't been time to worry about it then; now there was. 

He stormed up the steps of the church and slammed open the door; the small room was empty. "Josiah!" he shouted, "You here?" He heard the sound of a chair scraping across the floor and after a moment, Josiah walked out of the back room. 

The preacher didn't seem at all surprised to see the gunslinger, but he said, "Why, Brother Chris, what brings you here?"

Chris got right to the point and didn't try to keep the anger out of his voice. "Why'd you give the money to Ezra?"

Josiah shrugged. "Told you—it was serving a purpose."

"If I'd meant for Ezra to have it, I'd've given it to him myself. What the hell were you thinking?" he glared at the preacher accusingly.

Josiah crossed his arms and glared back. "I just figure a man oughtta face his demons."

"Fine, but that don't mean you pit him against the devil right off!" Josiah's expression changed to confusion and Chris felt his anger start to drain away. He knew the preacher well enough to know that his intentions had been good, however misguided they may have been; taking the man's head off wasn't going to change the situation with Hopewell. 

"Hell…" the gunslinger sighed and slumped down onto the nearest pew. Josiah slowly ambled over and sank down next to him. They sat in silence for a few moments before Chris sighed again and continued, "Look, we all know Ezra loves money; that's just how he was raised. And any time anyone comes along with lots of it, he's the first one lookin' for a piece of it. You get him around money, and his judgment just sorta goes out the window."

"So Ezra was right—you really didn't trust him with it."

"It ain't like that, Josiah. It's…" Chris paused for a minute, trying to figure out how to explain it; he'd understood it for some time, but he'd never had to put it into words. "Okay, you know what happened to—to my wife and son..." Josiah nodded quickly, not wanting Chris to have to dwell on it, "and that after it happened, I was a mess. Crawled into every bottle I could get my hands on and never woulda come out if it weren't for Buck." Josiah nodded again, not at all sure where this was going. "When I finally started to turn things around, well, it was hard. If I went into a saloon, you can bet I didn't leave 'til someone—usually Buck—dragged me back out. For a long time, I had to just not go. Took things a little at a time, and eventually, I got to where I am now. You get what I'm sayin'?"

Josiah was looking at the floor now, and Chris knew that the preacher understood exactly what he meant—hell, Josiah had been there himself. The big man sighed heavily and ran his hand over his face. "More temptation than he was ready for."

"Yep. He's makin' progress, but there weren't no way Ezra coulda resisted all that money; I knew that. Now, I don't doubt for a minute that he'd've come back once his conscience caught up to him, but it woulda been—it is—a setback for him and us."

"So why didn't you just tell him that when you gave me the money?"

Chris smiled thinly, "Buck used to tell me all the time that I should stop going into the saloons, that I couldn't control myself. Made me want to go in even more, just to prove him wrong. Some things, a man's gotta figure out for himself."

"And he did, so what's the problem?"

Josiah sounded frustrated, and Chris found himself echoing it in his answer. "The problem is Ezra's a known gambler and conman who's supposed to be part of the law here. There just ain't room for him to make a mistake like that. It's a damn good thing he saw Stutz when he did, 'cause if he'd've actually left town with that money, no one'd give him another chance. And that reminds me—" he gave the preacher a pointed look, "Anyone asks, you tell 'em we knew Ezra had the money on him." 

"Fair enough," Josiah replied readily, then, after another moment, added, "Y'know...you coulda told all this to me sooner."

"When you figure there was time for that?"

"Good point." 

Feeling they'd reached an understanding, Chris stood to leave, but as he opened the door, Josiah stopped him, "Wait—you said a while ago that Ezra was making progress. What'd you mean?"

"Well," the gunslinger said wryly, turning back to face the preacher, "'til you went and handed the whole bag to him, Ezra'd never once tried to lay claim to the whole $10,000. Thought we should all split it."

"Split it?" Josiah whistled and shook his head, "My, my. That IS progress. So…you gonna talk to Ezra 'bout all this?"

Chris thought back to less than an hour before, when he'd stood over the fallen gambler and told him he'd done good. Then Nathan had pulled a stack of bloody bills out of Ezra's coat. Chris had expected Ezra to launch into some sort of ridiculous explanation, tell him how it wasn't what it looked like. Instead, the dazed man had just smiled and said, "In the future, Mr. Larabee, I think it would be best just not to burden me with other people's money." 

"Nah, Josiah—he already knows."

***** 

Ezra stared at the clinic's ceiling, gritting his teeth against the pain. Nathan had offered him laudanum before he began stitching, but Ezra had declined. He hated the stuff; hated the taste and the way it dulled not just the pain but all of his senses as well. Suddenly, though, dulled senses were sounding better. He flinched as the healer pulled another stitch through.

"You doin' okay? How you feelin'?"

Ezra grimaced. "Rather embarrassed, actually. Oh, and there's this sharp pain in my side. Other than that, I'm fine."

"Bullet grazed you pretty good, but at least the money deflected it. You're lucky to be alive."

"Indeed; it appears that Stutz's money served a purpose beyond making me rich."

Nathan glanced up at him briefly then back to the task at hand, "I'm sorry you heard that, Ezra, but you can't be expecting me to apologize for saying it when I just pulled $10,000 out of the lining of your jacket."

Ezra looked away and didn't reply.

"So, were you really gonna just leave with it?" It wasn't an accusation; the healer seemed to be genuinely curious.

Ezra started to answer, then just lay for several long moments, staring again at the ceiling. Nathan continued stitching, waiting. Finally, the gambler sighed and said quietly, "I don't know."

Nathan's hand froze in mid-stitch and he looked at Ezra in disbelief. "How can you not know?"

Despite his prone position, the gambler managed a half-shrug. "I just don't. Looking at it now, I want to believe that I wouldn't have left, so I can't honestly say."

For a second, Nathan just stared at him, then he shook his head and went back to work. "I sure don't get you sometimes, Ezra."

"Meaning?"

"Well, first you get all upset that Chris wouldn't give you the money, sayin' you can't believe none of us trust you with it, then as soon as you get your hands on it, you try to take off with it. Now you're tellin' me you didn't want to leave with it, but you don't know if you woulda gone through with it or not. Swear to God, Ezra, if it was anyone but you, I wouldn't believe it." Nathan shook his head again.

"What, exactly, would you not believe?"

"The part about you not knowin' what you were gonna do."

"I just told you—"

Nathan waved him quiet. "I know what you said. And I'm sayin' that I believe you."

"Because I'm…me."

"Yep."

Ezra prided himself on his conversational skills, but for once, he felt completely lost. "I seem to have missed some key point in your reasoning. You made it very clear earlier today that you expected me to run off with the money and now that you've seen I was prepared to do just that, you nevertheless believe that I don't know if I would have—because I'm me. Would you care to explain?"

Nathan stopped his ministrations and looked Ezra squarely in the eye. "You really want to hear what I got to say? 'Cause you prob'ly won't like it."

"Yes, Mr. Jackson, I want to hear it. Whatever it is, I'm sure I deserve it."

The healer threw up his hands in exasperation, "You see? Right there—that's a perfect example. You say you 'deserve' to hear whatever I'm gonna say, as if I'm your pa or something, as if you're not a grown man who's perfectly capable of figuring out when he's in the wrong. You're always relyin' on everybody else to tell you what you should do or what you shoulda done."

"That's not—" Ezra started to sit up in protest.

"No, Ezra, you said you'd listen, so don't interrupt," Nathan pointed the needle at him for emphasis; Ezra settled himself back down and Nathan continued, "I've been working with you for a long time now, and I'll admit that in the heat of the moment, I don't always give you the benefit of the doubt. But I've seen you do a lot of good—usually when you think no one's looking or else when you just don't have time to think about it. That's the man I think you are. 

"Trouble is, there's also the man you keep tryin' to be—the man who meets everyone's expectations, no matter how high or low they are. Your ma thinks you're wastin' your time here, so every time she comes through or writes you a letter, you start actin' as though you're doin' us a favor by stayin'. You decided we all expected you to run off with the money, so that's what you almost did. You said yourself that you didn't want to do it—like somehow, you just didn't have a choice in the matter. Well, you did. You always do. And sooner or later, you're gonna have to accept it and take some responsibility for your actions." Nathan finished his piece and then simply gazed at the gambler, waiting for the words to sink in.

__

"Look inside your own heart…face your own demons…" Josiah's words rang in Ezra's head, but this time, he understood what the preacher had been trying to say. This wasn't about Chris or anyone else; truth be told, it wasn't even really about the money. It was about himself; it always had been.

Ezra had spent most of his life working cons; being whatever person he needed to be to get the job done. But there was no con here; he could just be himself—only he wasn't sure who the real Ezra Standish actually was, much less how to be that person. Nathan and Josiah were right; not only was he was still playing a role, it was any role that anyone handed him. 

And yet…he'd done the right thing when he saw Stutz. _Like Nathan said—when I didn't have a chance to think about it._ Still, it was a good sign, wasn't it? 

When the healer began stitching again, Ezra realized that he had been staring at Nathan for some time with what could only be termed a shocked expression. His mouth was hanging open, at any rate; he swiftly closed it, cleared his throat, and then discovered that he didn't know what to say. "I…don't know what to say," he finally managed.

Nathan smiled, "That's gotta be a first."

Ezra found himself smiling back, "I just…I mean, I understand what you're saying, but…it's not always that simple."

"Yeah it is, Ezra. Only person complicating it is you. If you wanna be a good man, then just be one, and the hell with what anyone else thinks or says or does." The healer snipped off the thread on the last stitch and sat back. "There, you're all set. Just let me get a sling for that arm; you'll heal faster if you don't go movin' that side around too much." He crossed the room to rummage in a dresser drawer.

Ezra sat up slowly, speechless for the second time in the space of a few minutes. The last time Nathan was this direct, they had barely known each other, and after berating Ezra soundly for his attempts at brokering marriages for a group of women, Nathan had given up, saying that anything else he might say would be "wasted" on the gambler. The words had stung, far more than Ezra would have expected. Now, sitting in the clinic and listening to Nathan's lecture, it occurred to him that if there weren't hope for him, the healer wouldn't have bothered. 

Nathan pulled a large piece of fabric from the dresser and brought it over. "And by the way…about what I said earlier today—" he said as he tied the sling around Ezra's arm, "I didn't mean that I thought you'd run off with the money." 

It was Ezra's turn for a disbelieving glance. "What else could you have meant by it?"

"I heard about the letter you got from your ma and that she was askin' for money; I thought you'd take some—SOME—of the money and send it to her and just say you figured it was your share."

Ezra gave him a wounded look and said emphatically, "You know, Nathan, that thought never once occurred to me." The healer actually looked chagrined and started to reply but Ezra cut him off, "I mean, really—you can't honestly think I'd trust that much money to my MOTHER." Nathan gazed at him in amazement for a brief moment, then the two of them burst out laughing.

"Ow," Ezra winced at a twinge in his side, "Please remind me not to make any more jokes." 

"Don't make any more jokes," Nathan said, then turned serious, "And don't use that arm more'n you have to. And don't get them stitches wet for at least a day. And if that wound starts bleedin' or gets real red, you come see me, you got it?" 

Ezra held his free arm up in mock surrender, "All right! I give you my solemn oath, Mr. Jackson."

"Well, then, you're free to go." Nathan picked Ezra's jacket up off the table and settled it around the gambler's shoulders. "You know, not to stir up any trouble, but I gotta admit I'm curious as to what Chris is gonna do with that money."

"As am I."

"Yeah, well, you prob'ly ought not to ask him about it. Might not set too well with him right now."

Ezra thought back to less than an hour before, when Chris had stood over him and told him he'd done good. Then Nathan had pulled the money out of his coat. Ezra saw the look of disappointment start to cross Chris's face, and the only thing that he could think of to say was the truth. He'd expected Chris to walk away in disgust, or even tell him he'd screwed up for the last time. Instead, Chris had nodded knowingly, looking for all the world as if Ezra had just figured out something that Chris had known all along. Hell, maybe he had.

"Actually, Nathan, I have a feeling he'd find it amusing."

"Thought you wasn't gonna make any more jokes."

"I assure you, I'm quite serious. Anyway, someone has to ask the question."

Nathan crossed his arms and looked at the gambler as if he'd lost his mind. Finally he laughed and shook his head, "You know what? I dare you to do it."

"Did—did you just _dare_ me, Mr. Jackson?" Ezra gave him a mock glare.

Nathan matched the look, "Yeah, Mr. Standish."

"Well, then, I can hardly refuse, can I? And what, pray tell, are the stakes?"

"How about your pride?"

"I'm afraid that's not worth much these days." 

"Okay, then; the loser buys the first round tonight."

"You have yourself a deal." Ezra grinned widely. 

Nathan glanced out the window before opening the door and couldn't suppress a chuckle. "Looks like we'll get to settle this bet right off. Chris's comin' up the street now." He put his hand on the knob, "Last chance to back out—you sure you wanna risk it?"

The gambler smiled, "Trust me, Mr. Jackson. I know what I'm doing."

"I do trust you, Ezra. Completely." Nathan replied seriously. Then he raised an eyebrow and grinned as he pulled the door open and ushered his patient outside, "But if he pulls a gun on you, you're on your own."

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THE END


End file.
